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It merely seeks to affirm the reasonable extension of copyright laws to the electronic media and internet, which most nations already enforce.
I would like to see some more reasonable limits on what can be trademarked. I heard that the woman who recently gave birth to eight children is trying to trademark the name "Octomom," given to her by the media.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I think the current copyright laws need to be rewritten, but I do think that creative artists, whatever their media, have the right not to have their intellectual property stolen.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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DMCA had at least one very useful provision: the idea that internet businesses are not responsible for what their users do. This means that Craigslist is not liable for defamation if they host an ad that libels some guy, and Microsoft can't win a lawsuit against eBay just because someone sold cracked copies of Office on the site (to oversimplify a bit).
Of course, DMCA is US law and this trial was not held in the US, so the two things might have very little to do with each other. But I think even internationally, I'd prefer to see venues not held responsible for infringement that occurs on their premises.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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scifibum, ebay should not be liable for someone selling pirated copies of MS Office as long as they had no reasonable way to know they were bootlegged. The principle of good faith would seem to apply here. But if some seller chooses for his icon a scruffy looking man with an eyepatch and a parrot perched on his shoulder, then I think there should be a reasonable presumption that ebay has some responsibility if they fail to check things out.
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quote:But if some seller chooses for his icon a scruffy looking man with an eyepatch and a parrot perched on his shoulder, then I think there should be a reasonable presumption that ebay has some responsibility if they fail to check things out.
Does eBay review all the seller icons? I'm being serious here: I would be stunned if that were the case, not least because it exposes them to liability of just this sort.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: scifibum, ebay should not be liable for someone selling pirated copies of MS Office as long as they had no reasonable way to know they were bootlegged. The principle of good faith would seem to apply here. But if some seller chooses for his icon a scruffy looking man with an eyepatch and a parrot perched on his shoulder, then I think there should be a reasonable presumption that ebay has some responsibility if they fail to check things out.
It sounds like we agree on the effects of the DMCA on this situation.
While not a US decision, the Pirate Bay case seems to depart from this sort of reasoning, and makes the web service provider liable for what their users are doing.
It's certainly true that bittorrent sharing is largely for purposes of piracy and that the owners had full knowledge of that. Yet...I think the next step is to attack the ISP, or the maker of the bittorrent client. It seems like the impact to the consumer will eventually be worse service with more stupid restrictions.
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posted
Sweden's "Pirate Party" has a surprisingly strong showing: CNN Link
I don't know if this is going to make for much more than a small show of public sentiment, but I did find it interesting. Also notable for the bit at the end about a possible retrial for the Pirates Bay founders due to a judicial conflict of interest.
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